Question for the "anarchists" in the crowd.

[hazek]

What would an ancap society have done differently?

Irrelevant.

It's the same as asking how would the cotton be picked if there was no slavery. Do you think 200 years ago someone giving the "Don't worry because we will invent big metal machines running on small explosions that will do all this work for us" would have been taken seriously or could have even made such a prediction?

No. Slavery is bad, so we don't do it, no matter the consequences.

Same goes with a small group of thugs enforcing their private rules through violence - it's bad and we have to evolve out of it.

[flynn]

1) administer Ampicillin

2) end of problem.

[Arto]

What would an ancap society have done differently?

Irrelevant.

It's the same as asking how would the cotton be picked if there was no slavery. Do you think 200 years ago someone giving the "Don't worry because we will invent big metal machines running on small explosions that will do all this work for us" would have been taken seriously or could have even made such a prediction?

No. Slavery is bad, so we don't do it, no matter the consequences.

Same goes with a small group of thugs enforcing their private rules through violence - it's bad and we have to evolve out of it.

+1. Not having lived in a stateless society, but only state-dominated ones, it's difficult to speak from personal experience to all the particulars of how various things might function in a free society. Further, it's boring: this thread essentially asks one to think like a central planner. I can't speak for anyone else, but I sure as hell don't intend on a career in central planning; I have a great many better things to do.

So, I think I'll let the people affected by a problem deal with the problem, thank you very much. I'm much more concerned with my own little problems, which presently revolve around a highly-organized crime syndicate calling itself "The Government" running a huge protection racket in my general neighborhood. Priorities, you know.

[ElectricMucus]

I propose a new sport: It's called let the Anarchists deal with it.
It works by coming up with some incredible rare scenario and ask what would have been done differently in Anarchy.


People, Anarchy is defined as a society where all authority is justified. Nothing more, nothing less.
There would have been plenty of people who would had the authority to confine her. In Anarchy there is structure, even more than there is in the state... Learn what's the difference between Authority and Power, Anarchy and Hierarchy.

[MoonShadow]

What would an ancap society have done differently?

Irrelevant.

It's the same as asking how would the cotton be picked if there was no slavery. Do you think 200 years ago someone giving the "Don't worry because we will invent big metal machines running on small explosions that will do all this work for us" would have been taken seriously or could have even made such a prediction?

No. Slavery is bad, so we don't do it, no matter the consequences.

Same goes with a small group of thugs enforcing their private rules through violence - it's bad and we have to evolve out of it.

Nonsense.  Really, I would have expected you guys to be able to think a bit more outside of the box.  I'm just asking you guys to speculate a little.  Hell, I can come up with better responses to my own query than you guys, I just don't like them very much.

Here's one....

Mary would have been arrested by the 'medical establishment', and her own security company would have immediately challenged the quarantine.  During negotiotiations, the doctors would have presented their evidence, and made the case that Mary was, against her own belief, a typhoid carrier.  A deal would have been struck that permitted Mary's release on the condition that she never work in food service but to be enforced by her own security company, and the medical institution would compensate Mary for her future loss of wages and agree to defend her against liability suits arising from outbreaks prior to her first arrest; all under the condition that if she breaks the terms of the agreement, her own security company will arrest her and keep her quarantined indefinately (making the liability of future events due to Mary's work & hygine habits her own security company's problem).

Again, I don't like this one very much.  I was looking for a better one.

[myrkul]

Mary would have been arrested by the 'medical establishment', and her own security company would have immediately challenged the quarantine.  During negotiotiations, the doctors would have presented their evidence, and made the case that Mary was, against her own belief, a typhoid carrier.  A deal would have been struck that permitted Mary's release on the condition that she never work in food service but to be enforced by her own security company, and the medical institution would compensate Mary for her future loss of wages and agree to defend her against liability suits arising from outbreaks prior to her first arrest; all under the condition that if she breaks the terms of the agreement, her own security company will arrest her and keep her quarantined indefinately (making the liability of future events due to Mary's work & hygine habits her own security company's problem).

Again, I don't like this one very much.  I was looking for a better one.

What's wrong with it? Seems reasonable to me.

[MoonShadow]

<snip snip snip>

But she was acting. She was seeking employment in the food service industry. That action directly caused harm.

That action may have cause indirect harm.  At no point did (prior to her first arrest) had Mary done anything with either the knowledge of possible harm, nor the intent to do so.  She was simply trying to seek income in the occupation for which she was trained & most profitable for herself. 

Her second arrest was most certainly a different matter, as she had been informed of (at a minimum) the possibility that she was a carrier, and had agreed to refrain from working in food service.  But I'm talking about how this all started, not how it ended.

 The fact that she didn't think it would (or even might, prior to her first quarantine) is irrelevant to the fact that it did. Once she did know that it might, taking some precautions is prudent, and failing to do so constitutes "depraved indifference." The fact that she disappeared before the health inspectors showed up at the woman's hospital shows a guilty conscience, and that she perhaps finally realized she might be the cause.

It might, but it might not.  The reality is that, at the time, a mid-level cook was a temp job, and Mary was accustomed to spending only a few weeks at a job before moving to another employer.  There was nothing particularly unusual about this pattern at the time.  Think about it from her perspectives.  It is assumed, at this late date, that Mary originally contracted typhoid after arriving in the US as a teenager.  There were no known outbreaks in the Irish hometown she was from while she lived there.  She arrives here around 15, and takes work as a cook's helper, and learns the trade well.  At some point she is working for some family that has a typhoid outbreak, she doesn't get sick like the others, but becomes a carrier.  For many years on, she encounters many American families that have typhoid outbreaks.  From her perspective, typhoid is simply a common illness in New York state, that was not common in Ireland.  There is no obvious reason for her to assume that she was the common link, as such an idea was still considered silly even by doctors.  Her working life would have been like the "Rain god" character in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minor_The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy_characters#Rob_McKenna) for she would not have been able to discern any differences between her life as a cook and anyone else's because she was never known to talk about much with any other cooks she might have encountered.

Furthermore, the doctor that hunted Mary down was hired by an owner of a rented villa wherein on of Mary's outbreaks occurred, and his job was to prove that the landowner was not liable.  Thus, he most certainly had an economic incentive to find a scapegoat, and a great many of Mary's defenders (during the first quarantine) believed that is exactly what Mary was, a scapegoat.  You can't honestly tell me that this event wouldn't have resulted in a challenge from Mary's own security contractor?

It probably would. There would be an arbitration case, which may well bring to light some of the more important medical facts, and might have sped up the acceptance of cleanliness as being key to preventing the spread of disease. We'll never know.

Given the information they had at the time, an AnCap society might have done almost the same thing, but like I said, there would have been an arbitration case. Who knows, maybe Mary was innocent.

Maybe the first time.  Doubtful the second time.

But why do you say Maybury's laws (which I wholeheartedly support) do not require absolute adherence? After all, it says "Do not," not "You should not," or "It would be a bad idea to."

Because Mayberry's laws, if generally followed by any society (regardless of the nature of the government, or lack of government) will prosper.  Those that generally fail to do so, will decline.  That is exactly why Mayberry's laws are called the Two Laws of Civilization, and not the two laws of individuals.  The two laws work as advertised even if a minority of the society refuses to abide by them, just so long as those few are regarded as criminals and treated accordingly.

As does the NAP. If a minority of the society act against the NAP, and those are seen and treated as criminals, the society works just fine, same as with the two laws. I reiterate, the second law is essentially the NAP restated.

While I agree that the results would be the same, I don't agree that the context is the same, nor do I believe that the context here is irrelevent.  Mayberry's laws, being general laws, can actually be violated as a matter of course by a small minority of people.  And these people are the very government agents we have today that regularly violate principles & common decency, and yet the society as a whole persists despite them.  Maybery's laws can also violate each other, under specific circumstances, and then those involved must choose which one to abide in each case.  The NAP, as a personal moral code, can only be rationally suspended once another person has initiated violence, and as such must be practially dropped altogether in the event that a social breakdown (such as a civil war) were to present the individual with multiple, unidentifiable risks.  As Mayberry's Laws are laws of civilizations as a whole, they are only guidelines for the individual.

[MoonShadow]

Mary would have been arrested by the 'medical establishment', and her own security company would have immediately challenged the quarantine.  During negotiotiations, the doctors would have presented their evidence, and made the case that Mary was, against her own belief, a typhoid carrier.  A deal would have been struck that permitted Mary's release on the condition that she never work in food service but to be enforced by her own security company, and the medical institution would compensate Mary for her future loss of wages and agree to defend her against liability suits arising from outbreaks prior to her first arrest; all under the condition that if she breaks the terms of the agreement, her own security company will arrest her and keep her quarantined indefinately (making the liability of future events due to Mary's work & hygine habits her own security company's problem).

Again, I don't like this one very much.  I was looking for a better one.

What's wrong with it? Seems reasonable to me.

Let's review a bit.  I'm a libertarian, not an anarchist.  I don't find my own argument above a convincing argument for the abolution of the state.  I'm looking for an actual anarchist to either improve my argument, or present a better one, that a government (i.e. an institution with a monopoly on the use of force) is not a requirement.  For example, in my own scenario above, how does the medical force get it's funding?  It's not a security company in it's own right.  In 1907 New York state, the health department was supported by taxation.  How would the medical institution in my scenerio above afford to exist much less be able to fund an investigation & arbitration agreement? 

[hazek]

Mary would have been arrested by the 'medical establishment', and her own security company would have immediately challenged the quarantine.  During negotiotiations, the doctors would have presented their evidence, and made the case that Mary was, against her own belief, a typhoid carrier.  A deal would have been struck that permitted Mary's release on the condition that she never work in food service but to be enforced by her own security company, and the medical institution would compensate Mary for her future loss of wages and agree to defend her against liability suits arising from outbreaks prior to her first arrest; all under the condition that if she breaks the terms of the agreement, her own security company will arrest her and keep her quarantined indefinately (making the liability of future events due to Mary's work & hygine habits her own security company's problem).

Again, I don't like this one very much.  I was looking for a better one.

What's wrong with it? Seems reasonable to me.

Let's review a bit.  I'm a libertarian, not an anarchist.  I don't find my own argument above a convincing argument for the abolution of the state.  I'm looking for an actual anarchist to either improve my argument, or present a better one, that a government (i.e. an institution with a monopoly on the use of force) is not a requirement.  For example, in my own scenario above, how does the medical force get it's funding?  It's not a security company in it's own right.  In 1907 New York state, the health department was supported by taxation.  How would the medical institution in my scenerio above afford to exist much less be able to fund an investigation & arbitration agreement? 

How can you expect any one person to give you an answer only an entire market can figure out? Don't you see you are asking for the impossible?

[MoonShadow]

How can you expect any one person to give you an answer only an entire market can figure out? Don't you see you are asking for the impossible?

I'm just asking for some speculation.  Some reasoned arguments.  I'm not asking for the world, just a little guidance about how an ancap society could have managed this case (or a similar one) without violating it's own principles, without inaction (which would have been catastrophic in this particular case), and (hopefully) without the degree of violations of Mary Mallory's rights as happend to her in the real history.  Certainly not with the end result being that someone had to assassinate her.

I'm really dissapointed in you guys.

[myrkul]

But she was acting. She was seeking employment in the food service industry. That action directly caused harm.

That action may have caused indirect harm.  At no point did (prior to her first arrest) had Mary done anything with either the knowledge of possible harm, nor the intent to do so.  She was simply trying to seek income in the occupation for which she was trained & most profitable for herself. 

Her second arrest was most certainly a different matter, as she had been informed of (at a minimum) the possibility that she was a carrier, and had agreed to refrain from working in food service.  But I'm talking about how this all started, not how it ended.

No, that action directly caused the typhoid outbreaks for which she was responsible. We could probably go back and forth over direct/indirect, but the fact is, she caused those outbreaks. Until her first quarantine, she may have been unwitting, but even accidental harm still requires recompense.

Her working life would have been like the "Rain god" character in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for she would not have been able to discern any differences between her life as a cook and anyone else's because she was never known to talk about much with any other cooks she might have encountered.

Now, this is a fine point. Still, it only works up until that first quarantine.

Given the information they had at the time, an AnCap society might have done almost the same thing, but like I said, there would have been an arbitration case. Who knows, maybe Mary was innocent.

Maybe the first time.  Doubtful the second time.

If she was innocent (not "not guilty," innocent - totally free of any wrong-doing) the first time, she was the second. Since it's doubtful she was not a carrier, then it's doubtful she was innocent.

As does the NAP. If a minority of the society act against the NAP, and those are seen and treated as criminals, the society works just fine, same as with the two laws. I reiterate, the second law is essentially the NAP restated.

While I agree that the results would be the same, I don't agree that the context is the same, nor do I believe that the context here is irrelevent.  Mayberry's laws, being general laws, can actually be violated as a matter of course by a small minority of people.  And these people are the very government agents we have today that regularly violate principles & common decency, and yet the society as a whole persists despite them.  Maybery's laws can also violate each other, under specific circumstances, and then those involved must choose which one to abide in each case.  The NAP, as a personal moral code, can only be rationally suspended once another person has initiated violence, and as such must be practically dropped altogether in the event that a social breakdown (such as a civil war) were to present the individual with multiple, unidentifiable risks.  As Mayberry's Laws are laws of civilizations as a whole, they are only guidelines for the individual.

They sure don't read like guidelines. They read like laws. The only time Maybery's laws can violate each other is when you've agreed to do something that would infringe upon someone's person or property. If you can suspend your duty to follow the second law simply by agreeing to violate it, why have it at all?

Also, the NAP is violated as a matter of course by government agents as well, and as you say, society persists, though certainly not a peaceful one.

I'm looking for an actual anarchist to either improve my argument, or present a better one, that a government (i.e. an institution with a monopoly on the use of force) is not a requirement.

Well, first, to answer your question, there are a number of ways a health inspection agency can be funded without taxation. First and foremost, is the donation (charity) model. A charity organization formed to promote the public health might come in and ask if they can test the food, etc. Alternatively, it could be funded by the institutions and restaurants (and possibly even private residences) that it inspects. That little "A" sticker in the window might be worn as a badge of pride, rather than simply the required cost of doing business. (Yes, I know those are a recent innovation, but you get the point.) Note that neither of these methods really give the health agency the ability to force their way in and demand an inspection, but if people are getting sick, you're probably going to be calling someone in to find out why anyway.

Secondly, to improve upon your example:
"Mary would have been arrested by the 'medical establishment', and her own security company would have immediately challenged the quarantine."

Mary most likely would not have been arrested, but if she were determined to be the likely cause of the outbreaks, she would have been tested. Diplomacy would most likely have had to been used, perhaps using the ploy that it was to clear her of suspicion, rather than to prove she's guilty. You be surprised how many people agree to being tested, if only you tell them that it's to prove them innocent, rather than to prove them guilty.

Once proof came back that she was, indeed, the carrier, most likely she would have had to agree to not seek employment in the food service industry. She might have had to pay restitution for the damages she caused, but the judgments would likely have been light. As you pointed out, she didn't mean any harm, and like the "rain god", probably simply thought people got typhoid a lot in the US.

On that second offense, though, that's when things start getting harsh. Even if she didn't flee her job at the woman's hospital, she still took it, after agreeing not to. At that point she is forcibly quarantined, and allowed to support herself, probably through a laundress job there at the facility.

[stochastic]

As a libertarian at heart, I respect the concept that governments cannot actually improve society (http://youtu.be/BNIgztvyU2U).  However, I have issues with the idea that a society without a traditional government (i.e. an institution with a monopoly on the use of force) can effectively manage the very small percentage of people who both have the ability to cause great & widespread harm and also refuse to refrain from doing so.

In the past, I've used the example of Child Protective Services and of criminal courts, but both those examples suffer from a lack of specificity.

So I want to use a different example, and one from history.

How would a (presumedly stable) anarchist society (ancap) have responded to Typhoid Mary without destroying itself via inaction and without violating it's own principles?  For those who need a refresher on her... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoid_Mary

Now bear in mind, that Mary steadfastly refused to accept that she was contagious, and refused to change her occupation (household cook) to one of less risk to others.  She caused massive amounts of human death and harm, entirely passively, simply by engaging in the type of work for which she was both experienced & trained.  

The state of New York locked Mary away in a hospital that was functionally a prison, yet did not, and could not, charge her with any actual crime.  All of the harm that she caused was of a passive nature, and she (presumedly) did not intend any of it.  She spent more of her natural life in this prison hospital than the average convicted murder does today in the United States.

What would an ancap society have done differently?

I have always be intellectually curious of cryptoanarchism and agorism, but the more I am involved with bitcoin the more technocratic I become.

I guess the theoretical answer would be that the victims of Ms. Mary would go to their favorite enforcers and tell them that by the negligence of Ms. Mary that they are entitled to compensation.  Then they would go to Mary's employer, union or whatever and come to a agreement of compensation.  Mary is fired and tries for a new job but the unions/employment companies know who Mary is and lost a lot of money on her so they tell her to get lost.

If this would actually happen, I don't think so anymore.  The fact that people on this forum won't even take responsibility for their investments shows that when it is theoretical people will be on board, but when someone has to actually step up, cowardice will defeat *anarchos.

[Vitalik Buterin]

You say that Mary is a household cook. Who is she a cook for? Talk to her clients and inform them of her condition. If they have any sanity, they would fire her in a heartbeat. If not, well, anything goes between consenting adults I guess.

[caveden]

This topic has already been discussed by renowned authors, like Robert Murphy: https://mises.org/daily/2635

What would an ancap society have done differently?

Irrelevant.

It's the same as asking how would the cotton be picked if there was no slavery. Do you think 200 years ago someone giving the "Don't worry because we will invent big metal machines running on small explosions that will do all this work for us" would have been taken seriously or could have even made such a prediction?

No. Slavery is bad, so we don't do it, no matter the consequences.

Same goes with a small group of thugs enforcing their private rules through violence - it's bad and we have to evolve out of it.

Great point. If you require previous knowledge of every possible outcome of a particular move, you'll never move at all.
It's a known fact - thanks to sound economic theory - that free markets are superior to coercive monopolies.

[myrkul]

This topic has already been discussed by renowned authors, like Robert Murphy: https://mises.org/daily/2635

Great article. Thanks for posting it.

[caveden]

This topic has already been discussed by renowned authors, like Robert Murphy: https://mises.org/daily/2635

Great article. Thanks for posting it.

And thank you for the vocabulary correction!

[Fjordbit]

I think the original question begs the premise that viral outbreaks are bad for society. Yes, they cause people to die now, but the ones that survive have a better immunity and going forward humans have a sustainable interaction with the virus that is now in the environment. The problem with the statist response is that it leaves us open to a larger outbreak of the virus within the society that has a larger potential for harm.

[myrkul]

The problem with the statist response is that it leaves us open to a larger outbreak of the virus within the society that has a larger potential for harm.

Like preventing forest fires. Good point.

[MoonShadow]

The problem with the statist response is that it leaves us open to a larger outbreak of the virus within the society that has a larger potential for harm.

Like preventing forest fires. Good point.

Yes, indeed.  That is a good point.

[MoonShadow]

This topic has already been discussed by renowned authors, like Robert Murphy: https://mises.org/daily/2635

Great article. Thanks for posting it.

And this is, indeed, an excellent article.  However, while I can see the point that pivate business owners (restraunts, hotels, etc.) would be able to refuse entry to known carriers, this is still a far cry from preventing exposure, although likely a fairly effective one in most situations.  Also, I agree that those who know they are ill are going to want treatment and desire to not get others sick, so are inclined towards voluntary sequesteration anyway.  Still, this method of "protecting society" seems cruel to the ill, although practially no worse than the statist version.  I don't know, in a lot of ways it seems wrong to deny even an ill man a safe harbor in a winter storm or a drink of water in a summer heat wave, but then feelings don't make for good public policy anyway.